iPad3.com domain name transferred over to Apple's lawyers

Last week we reported how Apple had begun taking action to have the iPad3.com domain transferred to its posession. Though the recent iPad is simply called the 'new iPad', the domain is clearly infringing upon Apple's trademark.

Last week we reported how Apple had begun taking action to have the iPad3.com domain transferred to its posession. Though the recent iPad is simply called the 'new iPad', the domain is clearly infringing upon Apple's trademark.

iPad3.com was registered in January 2010 and is currently owned by a company called Global Access in Isle of Man. Global Access is no stranger to cybersquatting complaints, having lost challenges by big companies such as AllState, AOL, an MasterCard.

The domain name is currently parked. Its traffic is rotated to various domain parking services with Above.com.

Now comes word that the transfer had already taken place, with Fusible noting that the iPad3.com domain is now registered to Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, a law firm which, according to Mac Rumors, Apple regularly does business with when it comes to intellectual property issues.

Given the speed of the domain transfer from the time the dispute was filed until now, it’s safe to assume a WIPO panel hadn’t even issued a ruling for Case Number D2012-1319, as the entire process can takes weeks and months. The case will end up being terminated, just as the cases foriPhone5.com and UsedMacs.com were terminated.

Ultimately, the next step is for the name to be transferred from Apple’s lawyers to Apple, as it was likely bleeding traffic when people typed www.ipad3.com into their web browser looking for “The new iPad” only to find themselves on a parked page filled with links.

As of Sunday night, the iPad3.com still doesn't redirect to Apple's own iPad page though we imagine that will happen sometime soon.

Acquiring domain names for anticipated Apple products became quite commonplace with the release of the iPhone so its nice to see that domain squatters are increasingly being deincentivized from partaking in their squatting ways.